Children of the Barricade
by megSUPERFAN
Summary: In the center of the barricade, five men fought. Deaths of Courfeyrac, Bossuet, Combeferre, Feuilly, and Joly. A companion piece of sorts to "That I Live and You Are Gone". Rated T for death and injury.


"Children of the barricade that didn't last the night... fighting for a new world that would rise up like the sun."

~_Turning_

* * *

Courfeyrac was fearless, the adrenaline of the battle surging through him, so that he found himself laughing. His grin was contagious, his enthusiasm like a storm that poured upon all who were close enough to hear and to see.

This Center fought near the center, among his friends and others whose names he did not know.

Like Marius, he was struck many times, but it seemed that nothing could hurt him.

Someone died beside him, and Courfeyrac's smile disappeared.

Even death did not hurt him; simply a heavy, metallic, _stifling _chill in his breast and the feeling of falling and the thought- _No. Not yet..._

* * *

"Courfeyrac!" Bossuet made his way painfully across the mound of bodies that seemed to have increased a hundredfold. His gun fell from his grip- he couldn't seem to hold onto it- and Bossuet bent to pick it up, closing his disobedient fingers around it. Already, he could see he was too late. Courfeyrac lay motionless, a weapon in his limp grasp and a bullet in his heart. Bossuet couldn't tear his eyes away. Only a minute ago, Courfeyrac had been speaking, shouting, even singing, and now…

Someone pulled him back- Combeferre- and a voice hissed in his ear, broken and raw like Bossuet felt- "There's nothing you can do for him!"

The gun slipped from his hand again; again he picked it up. It was empty of bullets- how long had he been holding on to an empty gun? For the first time in his life, Bossuet had to force a grim smile. "We will fight for him. For all of them."

He ignored Combeferre's unspoken _You're in no shape to be fighting, and you know it._

Was that thunder?

No, gunshots. An explosion of them, and suddenly, Bossuet couldn't hold himself upright. Somewhere, pain crept over him… someone said his name...

Red. Black.

_The colors of the world are changing…_

There was a ghost of a smile on his face, and his eyes were open.

An empty gun fell from his hand.

* * *

Combeferre removed his hand from his dead friend's shoulder, breathing hard and blinking back unwanted tears. He had _known _his friends would die, he had expected it. Yet the same feeling was upon him now that had seized him when he had offered to bargain for Jean Prouvaire, when he had followed Marius outside after the gamin's singing had stopped. He had known they would die, but something inside him didn't want to let them, not if he could help it.

Bossuet's eyes were not closed. Combeferre did not know what they were seeing now.

He supposed he would find out soon enough.

There were only a few others left alive in their small refuge in the barricade's center. Feuilly looked unharmed as far as Combeferre could tell- firm and unwavering as always. Joly was pale and bleeding, but still on his feet. The rest were not known to Combeferre by name, but they were no less valiant, no less brave.

One dropped to his knees, and Combeferre was by the man's side in an instant.

His focus left the larger battle for a second. A mistake.

Something- someone- shoved him over, and a sharp pain rushed into him, just missing his heart.

He may have screamed. The wounded insurgent shuddered in Combeferre's arms.

Metal again pierced him- he gasped for breath and could not find it.

He moved an inch, turned his head, his face searching for the darkening sky.

The third thrust blackened his dying vision completely.

* * *

Joly stumbled, the throbbing in his head increasing with each gunshot, with each cry. His side felt torn to shreds, and he saw his own blood as if it were another person's- his shattering mind desperately trying to keep itself sane.

He collapsed against the mangled furniture heap that represented their pride and hope and courage, that represented freedom itself. Men were dying against it, for it.

Joly was unable to move. His lungs refused to give up, his breath coming in irregular gasps, beating against his wounds like a flock of panicked birds trying to break free.

His blood- for it was his, however much Joly tried to deny it- was staining the wood… _Stop the bleeding, _his doctor's mind insisted. _Do something, anything!_

_I cannot._

Chilling cold came over him one moment, searing heat the next… pain and blood and noise and animal-like terror until Joly wanted to scream, to cry out, but could not.

Like a dream, he saw the others fighting. He couldn't match names to faces, but Joly was aware of a different sort of pain within him that did not come from any weapon. The battle was chaos, and Joly was too weak to try and rise. He knew he would not move again from the place where he now lay.

What, then, delayed death's arrival?

* * *

Feuilly paused for a moment to reload and to breathe.

Only then did he notice Joly leaning against the barricade's frame, his head and side covered in blood, unmoving save the labored rising and falling of his breast. His eyes were fixed on Feuilly, and the workingman felt a pang of guilt- how long had his friend been sitting there?

"Joly?" Feuilly knelt. Joly said nothing. Feuilly made to touch the gaping wounds, to pull aside the torn coat, but Joly shook his head.

He was suffering; Feuilly could see. He asked questions softly, though he knew already what the answers would be. "Shall I help you inside?"

"No. Too late."

"Are you in pain, _mon ami_?"

"It's going away. Don't worry." A pause. "Where's Bossuet?"

"He's dead. I'm sorry."

"Are they all dead?" Joly's voice was now hardly a breath. "All of our friends?"

"All but Enjolras, and Marius, perhaps Grantaire, and I…" Feuilly's voice faltered. "And you."

There was a silence broken only by far-sounding shouting and gunfire.

Joly's eyes closed, and his body trembled. Feuilly took his friend's hand. It was cold. He wanted to say more, to do more, but only the name would pass his lips in a broken whisper. "Jolllly..."

_Fly away on four L's._

* * *

Feuilly hardly felt the shot that brought him down. Or the bayonet. He killed a man as he dropped to the unsteady earth that seemed to roll beneath him, his life leaving his body behind on the falling barricade.

Death was dark and almost peaceful, like any other night.

And filled with stars.

* * *

One merciful bullet finally ended Joly's pain a minute later.

* * *

**A/N:**

**...I'm sorry for any emotional and quite possibly physical pain I may have caused you. Believe me, it hurt to write this, but the idea would not leave me alone.**

**For those who didn't know: "_Fly away on four L's" _in regards to Joly is a pun said by Jehan in the Brick. ("L's" sounds like "ailes", which is "wings" in French.)**


End file.
